Previews

Hands-on: Star Trek Online

Star Trek Online's approach to away-team missions makes sense for a game, so you'll have to excuse it from a logical storytelling standpoint. On solo missions, the captain is always part of the away team, accompanied by four bridge officers. If you're working on a group mission with four other human players, the away team will be comprised of five captains.

Combat was a significant part of the mission I played through during my hands-on session, and the combat system proved very easy to grasp. The "pet" AI that drives the bridge crew did what I expected it to: It kept the officers following me, and they shot at enemy targets whenever we encountered hostiles. I noted that my crew always shot first, which didn't seem very Starfleet of them, but we can forgive their indiscretions in time of war.

Your abilities in hand-to-hand combat are generally tied to the weapons you use and your career powers. Pressing 1 to trigger my primary attack fired single shots form the rifle, while 2 triggered a more powerful sniper shot. Pressing 3 would swing the rifle butt, a melee-range ability that knocks back and stuns enemies. When I picked up a larger weapon later my secondary attack changed to a hail of fire that would blast anything in a frontal cone. Enemies and allies tended to just run right up to each other at times, though. That's a big departure from the typical Star Trek shootout, where you'd expect to see both sides ducking behind crates and popping out to take shots with phasers. It did pay to duck away when I could, though, as you quickly regenerate your "shields" as you do in Halo.

I came away feeling that this run-and-gun, in-your-face style of combat felt more like Starship Troopers than Star Trek. Maybe I was looking for something completely different, but Star Trek Online's approach to ground combat was very similar to what you'd find in any other MMO.

On the bright side, you can choose to specialize your captain in martial arts, which includes the classic neck chop and Kirk's two-fist strike. Score!

Engage!

While the ground-based combat felt very much like every other MMO, the space combat portion of the game garnered more of my interest. Space combat in Star Trek has its own feel that's far different from what you'd find in a setting with nimble single-man fighters. Star Trek ship battles take place between huge vessels manned by hundreds of crew. These battles are won by diverting power between the shields and the ship's vital systems, by repairing structural damage mid-combat, and by maneuvering intelligently, positioning the ship so that you can bring your weapons to bear on the enemy while protecting your own vulnerabilities.

The keyboard controls in space are easy enough to get a hang of. You can click anywhere on your throttle to set the ship's speed, which is anywhere from reverse to full impulse. Full impulse is great for quickly racing from one place to the next, but it keeps your shields from activating for a couple seconds, making it dangerous to pop in right next to enemies. You have four shield arrays, covering your front, rear, and flanks, and if they're depleted you can easily click on arrows to divert power from elsewhere to get them back up. Depending on your ship and its configuration (which is customizable) your weapons have specific firing arcs. The phaser banks on the ship I used were located at the front and sides of the ship, so it was ideal for me to fire on ships that were at a particular angle from me. Front and rear-firing photon torpedoes were good for the final blows.

If you've ever played a game that featured tactical naval combat, like Empire: Total War or Sid Meier's Pirates!, you have a general idea of what Star Trek battles are like. The main difference is that you're fighting in three-dimensional space, so instead of just giving cardinal directions to your allies when barking out commands, you may also have to add whether or not the enemy is above or below you.

The basic tactic to ship combat is to deplete enemy shields with phasers, then kill the ship with torpedoes. When possible, you'll want to "broadside" an enemy ship by positioning your ship in such a way as to bring the most phaser banks to bear, dropping its shields in the process. Once those shields are down, it's time to let those photon torpedoes fly to deal the killing blow. Tactical officers have an ability that allows you to fire a photon torpedo salvo instead of just a single shot, an ability that can mean the difference between taking an enemy down at once and having to wheel around again for a second pass.